


The Rogues are Timelords

by therune



Category: DCU - Comicverse, Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-26
Updated: 2012-05-26
Packaged: 2017-11-06 01:49:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/413387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therune/pseuds/therune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Do you know TV Tropes? Do you know Wild Mass Guessing? Then I'm sure you have stumbled onto "Character X is a Time Lord" - and this is what this fic is about. Which Rogue is a Time Lord? </p><p>All of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Captain Cold

There are not many things Len Snart has kept from his childhood. Except for Lisa, he had no family to speak of; his father didn't have much in terms of worldly possessions, and he even tried to leave behind his memories.  
However, there is a small thing he keeps on him, safely tucked away in a pocket. It's among the first things he gets back when he breaks out of prison. Even he doesn't know where he got it, but he knows that it's his, and always has been. In his mind he supposes that maybe his grandfather gave it to him long ago, but deep, deep down in his heart he feels that it isn't like that and never was.   
And he never opens it. Of course not, it's broken, isn't it?  
It's on a dark day, in one of his darkest hours, when he visits Lisa at her grave, when he opens it. He doesn't know why, or why not, or why now.  
But the watch is open now, and it's not a watch. Not a watch at all.  
A voice, a dozen voices talk to him.   
_Remember. Remember who you are. You are me, you are us._  
And then, Lenbarthusazar, awakens. Lenbarthusazar, who is not a crook from Central City. Lenbarthusazar who is not human, who never was. Lenbarthusazar who is a timelord from the planet Gallifrey, in the constellation of Kasterborous.   
And whose TARDIS is disguised as an old fridge in an old storage locker.  
Lenbarthusazar knows about the laws of time, knows that it is every time lord's duty to protect the web of time. But he was also Len Snart, a crook, a Rogue and above all - a brother.  
And time be damned, he has a dead sister and a time machine. The math is easy.  
There is a sound like grating, a flash of light and wind rushing into a place where just now stood an alien machine.   
The past won't know what hit it.


	2. The Trickster

He has always known. Known how it was, how it is, how it should be and what could go wrong, so very wrong.   
He is so young when he runs away, barely a century old. He takes his name from one of the monsters from old, from a very real threat that he might or might not actually be.   
And he specializes on little things. Little things that won't change the time line, little things that won't hurt, little things that don't matter.   
So what if he has tech that he shouldn't have, that no one should have, not now, not for several hundred years? So what if he often just knows what's going to happen? He'll just smile and claim that he has known, which will of course lead the others to think that he's bluffing. He could predict the future and they will accuse him of either bluffing or cheating. He doesn't care. Humans are full of faults, of oh so many, many faults. But there are a couple of nice things about them, about some of them. He remains the eternal rebel.  
And then the universe catches up with him. And he's tempted to run, to run far, far away from it all so he won't have to see what happens, but it's too late. He has stayed for too long, done too much, seen too much - he is part of the timeline now, he can't leave without damaging it. At first he tries to ignore it, to blind himself and so he doesn't really believe that Roscoe is going to die. But Roscoe does, and he sobers up. Before Sam leaves for the final time, not that he or anyone else knows that, James hugs him and tells him that he's sorry. Both he and Sam think that he was probably drunk. 

Then he changes his game. Now, he interferes. He changes things, he steers things, he makes things happen. And he feels good about it, he's in control. He can sense time changing, bending bit by bit.   
And then his friends die and it has all been for nothing. He cared so much, more than he has ever cared, he has tried to help, has begun years before it all started, and it hasn't worked. He has failed. 

Alright then, no more games. No more playing. He gets serious.   
No one suspects him because the Trickster is loud, the Trickster is flashy, the Tricksters always needs an audience. He lets them think that, because he is more than that. But no matter what he does, whom he saves, whom he destroys - nothing gets better. He feels so powerless. More friends die and he couldn't save them. His friend gets framed for murder and breaks. And so does he. He makes a call home....no, not home. Gallifrey may be where he is from, but not where he belongs. He does not ask for forgiveness, nor mercy. He makes a deal with the Celestial Investigation Agency - he helps them if they help him. He becomes an agent in more ways than one. And he hates it, every single second of it. But it seems as if he's helping, finally. His friends may hate him, but they're safe, they're alive. 

And of course it all goes to hell. The Flash dies and they have to run. He stays with Piper because he has seen that he will, so he does. The future changes, and he has to fight to keep Piper alive. Piper is supposed to be alive, so that is what he does: run, fight, and even fight Piper if he has to. Logically, he knows that a lot of what he does is stupid, but he has seen them being at Canary's wedding, so he drags Piper there. He sees them talking to Two-Face, so he goes there. He even sees the desert, so they go there. What he does not see is his death, that his time ends. He sees that Piper has to go on, that he has to live. And he will make sure that it works this time.   
"No! Not him, not now!" Time has plans for Piper. He's not in it, but that's unimportant. All through his life, he has played games, played tricks - and what has it brought him: the death of his friends. At least with his last act he wants to do something good, something he can be proud of. He saves Piper's life, and wishes he had told him, he had told anyone. But it's too late, there is only pain, agonizing pain, and then nothing.


	3. Heat Wave

Heat Wave's origin story is a bit of an odd one. A kid, plagued by cryophobia and haunted by fire. When Mick tells his story, he will mention bullies, a cruel prank and a fire that took his family. But when he's in the bar and talks to the guys, it will be kids and a farm in the country that burned. The truth contains Ice Warriors and an exploding spaceship. His escape pod was the only one that made it to the next inhabited planet - Terra. Earth. Mick's a bit confused, suffering from serious blows to the head and maybe worse. But the natives are reasonably nice and the planet doesn't seem too bad, especially not now that he knows what happened to the Ice Warriors.   
The place he first goes to is a circus - outcast among outcasts. But it doesn't last. It's certainly nice, but not enough. At their next stop, he leaves the tent behind. And really, Keystone isn't too bad. Especially not since he has discovered the Flash. He is massively intrigued, and this whole meta-business is fascinating. Everyone always talks about Superman (alien, boring. Mick knows aliens, Mick is one), Batman (a human, boring) or Wonder Woman (which is incredibly intriguing, but Mick fears that he really doesn't get women....or at least, this woman), but Flash - Flash is human, but not. He is fascinating. Mick wonders if he should assist him, but what fun would that be? Fighting him is more interesting, and will yield better results, surely. Now, he is the one who needs a gimmick. He's too subtle of an alien to be like Superman (laser eyes? really) and far too clever for the things Batman and his friends pull. Then, he finds his muse. Not that he'd ever tell Len that. But Captain Cold is perfect - human, resourceful, and just the right mix between brave and pragmatic. Mick will be just like him. Well, except for the cold, he really doesn't like it. He builds a flame thrower with a little extra spice (which actually is a minneral not found on Earth which causes the fire it's been added to, to burn brighter, more savagely and eat through supposedly fireproof materials), makes himself a costume (before he goes to Gambi as everyone else. The man is a genius...for a human) and joins the fight. He even joins the Rogues.   
According to his studies on human sociology (which the others see as sitting in a bar and drinking weird beer), a human group needs to be composed of different elements - two of the same kind are rare. The group needs to be balanced. He takes a look at the occupied positions - hardheaded, intelligent, snobby, foolish, quiet, reserved, obnoxious - and settles for "dumb". And it grants him sympathy. America is a land of the ignorant. In their own right, every one of the Rogues is a genius. He is the cleverest of them all, but he plays dumb. And instead of making fun (too much), they accept him. "Come on, it's Mick we're talking about" is a frequent excuse for a lot of stuff he pulls (intentionally or not. Humans are weird sometimes, and there are things he still doesn't get. Like poodles, bubble tea and basically of all Asia). So Mick plays, fights, runs and is having the time of his lives.   
He experiences ....things he had not thought possible.  
A man insults him in a bar, and Digger socks the guy. Not because of Mick's rank (which Digger doesn't know about), not because it's a breech of protocol (Digger doesn't seem to have a sense for those) and not because Digger expects anything in return - he just hits people who insult his friends (if he's not doing the insulting himself).   
And that is wonderful. 

In his initial studies, he copied Len a bit too well. He was just as stubborn, just as determined and just as obsessed with the ladies. Well, the same ladies. He and Len butted heads a few times, and it really got ugly at one point, but Mick learned that too much of one thing is well....too much and never a good idea. So, when Len tells him about this one girl he likes who works in a bookshop down the street and is the sole reason for Len ever entering said shop, Mick congratulates him and asks if Len would like to cancel the current heist. Len mutters something about brothers before hose (which is one of the human things Mick didn't get then) and says to go on with the heist. Of course it ends in a mild disaster, but it was meant well. 

People like him now. And that is new. Humans have lots of different ways of liking people, a thousand more than the Time Lords, and Mick gets them. A few, at least.   
Someone makes a mean joke about Piper, Mick burns their car. Out of a mix of Mick wanted to, Mick should have done it, Mick feels like it and a feeling no language really has a word for. It's like "no one hurts my family, you're like my brother, well, more than that, because I actually like you, you're one of us, I'm one of you, I belong, you belong, the rest are bastards", out of protectiveness, and rage and I want to see you burn.   
Mick changes tactics, tries to reform and be on the side of the Flash. But it doesn't yield any results other than Len and Lisa are fucking creepy if you get on their bad side, and they have the worst way of saying "we were really hurt by what you did, we want you back, but we don't know how, so we're going to torture you with cold and worse, because that's our thing and you really hurt us, please don't do this again." The siblings don't take loss or betrayal by their family easy - and that's putting it mildly. It's then that Mick realizes that a) he has found a new family, b) he has kind of abandoned his study project of the metahuman gene years ago and c) his family may be weirder than his old one. Where his birth family was all too content with staying away from each other and living perfectly fine without seeing each other, his new family cannot stand being away, being left alone. Mick has never really thought about it, but all his friends come from broken homes, one more damaged than the other. Maybe that is why they stay together. And once again, Mick feels like an outcast even among the outcast.  
He starts to notice little things, like Mark getting sad when he looks up at stars, Len staring whenever he sees an ice cream van or how James, in the air, will sometimes look down and clutch the nearest object with a death grip. They're broken, every single one of them.


	4. Weather Wizard

The Rogues come from broken families. And Mark needed to fit in.   
No one suspects that Clyde isn't real, that Clyde never existed. Their parents never existed. He made them all up. The Mardon family never existed, their golden boy Clyde never died and Mark isn't the rebel son who was neglected. He isn't the shadow of a genius, he is the genius. Because, no matter how much he made up, the technology is real. A device that can control the weather, any weather anywhere is marvelous. A miracle, a revolution, and it's in the hands of a criminal. But since it was Mark who made it, it was Clyde's work, no one questions it.   
That makes Mark their equal. It makes Mark a Rogue. And he couldn't be happier.   
Crime is fun! Breaking rules is fun! And, from the point of view of a man from a stagnating society of rules-obsessed, old, arrogant bastards, it is exhilarating!   
He started on a scientific mission to test out weather altering machines, along with a team of fellow scientists and engineers. They don't perform the tests on Gallifrey itself, what if it goes wrong? What if it goes right? And since neither time nor distance are any problem when you have a fleet of TARDISes, they chose a nice, remote sector of the universe where there's not much intelligence, but a lot of weather. The scientists split up, each one gets a planet in what humans call the solar system. Mark – whose real name has about 4 Zs and three Phs – gets Earth and is “coincidentally” left there, stranded. The weather devices never worked and the mission is abandoned. Mark is chalked up as an acceptable loss and the Time Lords move on. No one discovers Mark's sabotage and no one ever comes looking for him.   
Which is what he wanted. He is on his own, free to do whatever he wants, able to get anything he ever desired, and to mingle with the bad crowd. It's great! Here, he is not one fish swimming against the stream of dullness, here he is part of a swarm. Part of a pack, of a pride.   
Sure, he could probably enslave the planet, rule over Earth and probably the rest of the Milky Way, but where's the fun in that? And the Flash thought all the time that it was his doing that left the Rogues small and unable to envision their full potential, but Mark knew it all along. He knew from the start of what he could do, of what he could become, but screw it, being a Rogue is awesome!


	5. Captain Boomerang

The Rogues pride themselves on their code, their rules. And Digger prides himself on being mentioned in ¾ of it by name. Mostly preceded by the words “Don't let” or followed by “is not allowed under any fucking circumstances”. He is often the butt of their jokes, he is ridiculed, laughed at, and most of the times, it is well deserved. And he doesn't care a bit.   
Finally, he feels comfortable. No one wants things from him, no one expects the unreasonable, no one punishes him for not being good enough. Now, when he gets punished, it's for being himself. And that is wonderful! He is lazy, violent, rude and loves to annoy people. Digger is a simple man.   
And is also a renegade time lord with a son conceived in the future, sent back and raised in the past. He still looks forward to meeting Owen's mum.


	6. The Top

Roscoe was of course an assumed name. He actually is a junior agent at the Celestial Intervention Agency; intelligent, ambitious and tough as nails, and he is from a planet from across the universe. Roscoe has picked his alias with a great deal of caution and deliberation; watching the humans and their sorry excuse for society, their culture and funny little traditions, has prepared him for this mission. It only occurs to him once he is on the surface of the planet, that he should have tried more fieldwork and less textbook study; humans are even worse than he thought. Instantly, he is labeled an arrogant, stuck-up jerk. It's not his fault that this society is faulty, he is perfect. He is a gentleman amongst savages.   
His original mission was to observe the famous renegade, the Doctor on his exile on Earth. Needless to say, that bored him and he left England almost instantly. And no, he absolutely didn't just spin a globe and randomly picked a destination. America was a deliberate choice.   
He entertained global domination schemes – and still does – but those are postponed once he discovers the Rogues and fighting the Flash. He can tinker all he wants, invent what he wants, and put those inventions to the test. The money, diamonds and other jewelry is just a bonus, really. Even if daddy needs new tops....  
And while he still tries to take over the world every now and then, once he has met Lisa Snart, his priorities shift. It's suddenly not him who's important, it's Lisa, and her every wish is his command. Except getting along with her brother, that is impossible. Len's a jerk. And about a thousand other things Roscoe can't mention in polite or human company.  
But that's his life now – he has a job (if an unconventional one), a home (and several safehouses, storage lockers and a villa in France he bought on a whim) and a girlfriend. He has gone native.  
So?


	7. The Trickster

_"No! Not him, not now!" Time has plans for Piper. He's not in it, but that's unimportant. All through his life, he has played games, played tricks - and what has it brought him: the death of his friends. At least with his last act he wants to do something good, something he can be proud of. He saves Piper's life, and wishes he had told him, he had told anyone. But it's too late, there is only pain, agonizing pain, and then nothing._

Until there is a blazing golden light, until there is sound and smells and just life.  
Look at that – regeneration kicked in, and fried the handcuffs. Awesome!   
Every cell of his body renewed, recombined to form a new him. This him is another man – old and new, him and not him, the Trickster and something else.   
Oh Rassilon, he forgot Piper.  
“Um...surprise?” he tries weakly.   
Piper just gapes at him, mouth hanging open comically.   
“I'm not dead and the handcuffs are useless. We're free.”  
“What have you done with James?”  
“It's me, Hartley. I never told you or anyone, because frankly, no one would believe it. Not the alien bit, but because it was me who told it. So, yeah, I'm an alien. A lord of time. What you have just witnessed is called Regeneration, every cell in my body changing to cheat death. A new me!”  
It's then that he notices the tear tracks on Piper's face. Oh. That's... people don't mourn him. People shouldn't cry because of him, they should smile. Piper looks pretty when he smiles.   
“Don't be sad. The Trickster you knew is gone, died to save you, but not entirely. To misquote a fictional lion, he lives in me.” He grabs Piper's hand, looks into his eyes. “It's still me.”  
“You're...different.”  
Oh god. Traumatic, uncontrolled regeneration. Has he all limbs? Not too much? Blue skin? Third eye? What happened to him?!

As James examines himself and is overjoyed at having no additional legs or arms, Piper grins a bit. This new man doesn't look like James – he's too small, too skinny, too impish, really – but there is James in his gestures, and most blatantly, in his smile. That smile stayed the same. The face is different, but the smiles remained.   
Piper should be freaked out, but he doesn't know if he can still be freaked out, he's all out of normalcy. James was dead, and then a second later, he's glowing golden, and then sparks fly and he changes. Into another man, but an alive one.   
He can't help himself and wraps his arms around James.   
“I'm glad you're alive.”  
“I'm short?! Oh god, you're taller than me!”  
Yep, definitely James in there.


End file.
